not so alone
by Prelude in Indigo
Summary: From the first time that Squalo meets the Tenth Calvallone to the time that Dino saves one shark from another, their friendship has remained -not so- nonexistent, because Squalo needs no one.


**Well, wasn't this fast? :P Haha, I spent like three hours straight writing this and then an hour editing before I was satisfied... I think I really annoyed the others who needed the computer. xD**

**So, SQUALO! AND DINO!  
>I LOVEEEEE Squalo. 0_0 He's bloody awesome. And Dino's pretty cool too, haha. (Clumsy people of the world unite!) Now, this- I think it starts awkwardly, but it moves on to become more smooth. I don't like the title. It was all I could think of... Is Squalo too tsundere in this? 0.o (I can't believe I said that...)<strong>

**I fudged on the details of Squalo's grand rescue a bit, I think. (I think!) I couldn't remember the exact chapter that it showed it in, and I didn't feel like rereading the Varia arc... *is ashamed***

**Enjoy the Squalo-ness!**

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><p>Squalo Superbia had certainly never considered that bucking horse to be one of his friends- he'd been a clumsy weakling and he wasn't nearly on the same level that he (he, the sword emperor) was on. He wasn't on the same level as even the lowest scum of the Varia, renowned for skills above all others.<p>

So it wasn't his fault when the idiot started to follow him, and it wasn't his fault that he latched on to him (like an annoying puppy, useless and helpless) and it definitely wasn't his fault that the brat actually _liked_ him. (He'd told him to get lost, hadn't he? He had.)

He ignored it when the soon-to-be-tenth-Calvallone-boss (really, who could have become a boss with _that_ loser disposition?) got closer to him. He pretended that it wasn't happening, and he tolerated the idiot.

It didn't matter, he told himself, and if he didn't squash Dino under his foot like a bug, then so what? It was only because the kid was so pitiful it would have been like kicking a puppy. (He didn't think about the fact he wouldn't have had a problem kicking a real puppy.)

Even back then, he'd known what he was going to do. He would be a swordsman and he would be the _best_, because there was no point in doing anything unless you were the best at what you did. He would be Xanxus' right hand- the right hand of the Tenth Vongola boss. (It didn't occur to him that the Calvallone –Vongola alliance was amongst the tightest in the mafia world.)

And it didn't bother him at all, how Dino laughed affectionately when Squalo stated that he wouldn't cut his hair until Xanxus became the Tenth Vongola boss. (He really didn't care.) He wasn't seeking _approval_ from the brat- who was turning out to be not so much of a brat after all.

He traveled the world, fighting. He fought and he fought and he became better and better, and in between the fights he returned home to watch Dino grow into a boss. (A decent one, surprisingly enough.)

The pinnacle of his fighting career came when he defeated the Sword Emperor, the greatest swordsman in the world, the man who'd been the Varia boss. He gave Xanxus the seat of boss. (He didn't want to be a boss, neither was he worthy of it.)

And then he returned, his left hand gone, a sword in its place. (The pain was worth it.) And the brat had yelled at him, told him that it wasn't worth losing his left hand, just to _know_ that he was the best. (The words shamed him, a new feeling for one whose very title was arrogance.)

Squalo didn't need him, he assured himself. Dino was disposable- another means of entertainment, someone who admired him, someone who made him feel relied on. With no family to speak of, Dino was who congratulated him when he became the Varia's rain guardian- and he was who told him he hadn't failed too badly (and he hadn't) when he became the Calvallone boss.

And then, disaster struck. (Disaster and Xanxus were synonymous.)

Xanxus, the only one Squalo had ever looked up to, ordered a coup, a takeover of the Vongola main base. Squalo didn't understand it- how he could throw away what he'd worked for for so long- and he tried to talk him out of it, but what Xanxus wanted, Xanxus _got_.

He was _worried_, an emotion that was unfamiliar to Squalo. He was _concerned_. Timoteo was Xanxus' father, and he _knew_ he loved him, but more than that, he worried how this would effect the relationships with other families. Would the mafia universally turn against them? Would any stay by their side? (Would the Calvallone?)

It was the job of a right hand man, he insisted, to worry about relationships with other families. Calvallone was a strong family, and, in a surprising twist of fate (but never disappointing) Dino was a strong boss. Not an adversary that he could respect (not remembering the clumsy weakling he'd been before) but a fearsome one all the same.

(He certainly wasn't worried that Dino wouldn't admire him anymore, and not that he would lose the so-called 'friendship' they shared- never that.)

But then he learned it all- learned of the pain that his best friend was in, that Xanxus had suffered. Learned why the coup was necessary, even if it had failed. Xanxus would never be the Vongola boss. Squalo would never be his right hand. And he did lose what he and Dino had had (if it was worth mentioning) but in the face of everything else he'd lost (purpose, destiny, future) it didn't matter. (He told himself that over and over again.)

Maybe he could have moved on. Maybe he could have tried and repaired his relationship with the Calvallone brat, but _Xanxus wasn't dead_. And he had _sworn_ that he would make Xanxus the Tenth Vongola boss- he'd staked his very life on it, and his precious left hand- and Squalo always kept his promises.

For years he trained- trained, as the leader of the Varia, and prepared for Xanxus' return. In reality, even once he was unfrozen, Squalo was the brains behind the operation. _He_ was the one who kept the Varia happy, who coordinated missions, who ran the show.

Later on, Dino would say Xanxus underappreciated him, but Squalo never thought of it that way.

Finally, eight years later (eight years of damn back-breaking work) it came. The coup was organized. _Xanxus would be the Vongola X,_ and his years of work would be recognized. He was almost proud. (But still worried, and maybe a bit anxious.)

And then- and _then_ that _stupid_ brat, that damned Calvallone had been there, in Japan, when he claimed his prize. The one thing he wasn't expecting. The person he wasn't prepared to fight. He'd looked him in the eyes, and saw none of that little puppy-like weakling that he'd been before. In eight years, he'd turned into a man.

That man was not afraid to tell him. _He should have been ashamed of himself._ He was. So ashamed that he could barely look his old classmate in the eyes, but he did anyway, and spat out words just like he would have back when Dino admired him. Because he _wasn't_ below that brat. He _didn't_ care about him.

He shoved it to the side of his mind, and he left for Italy, carrying his prize, and he'd suffered Xanxus' wrath when the prize turned out to be like one of those stupid carnival booby prizes. (But on a much bigger scale.)

Squalo blamed no one but himself and that stupid Calvallone. (Mostly Dino, of course.) He didn't _care_ that his old sort-of-friend had looked on him pityingly, he told himself, he was just mad that he'd acted like Squalo was the one who ought to be ashamed. (Even if it was only because he had betrayed the brat, practically, and Squalo prided himself on keeping promises.)

So he returned to Japan, and he avoided Dino's eyes, and told himself that it was because he was _mad,_ because he was _infuriated_ at that pity. (Why should he be pitied?)

The sun guardian had lost, and he'd been okay. He'd been fine, because just _one_ weakling didn't mean that they were _all_ weaklings, and Squalo would win anyway. Then the thunder guardian won (by sheer luck, which bothered Squalo, but a win was a win) and the Prince the Ripper won too. And it was _his_ _turn._ He needed to win, needed to keep the lead, and he was confident. The other rain guardian was a newbie, a _child_, and the _Sword Emperor_ would never lose, let alone to a child.

But lose he did. And not because of luck, and not because of some unpredictable style- none of that. The kid had _screwed him over._

He had almost _died_. (He _should_ have died.)

But that stupid, _stupid_ Calvallone had rescued him, and there in the hospital bed, Squalo felt all his shame coming back to him.

_Why?_ his mind protested. He'd betrayed that brat- _Dino-_ and in return, his life had been saved.

And maybe what hurt the most was that Dino didn't reassure him. He didn't tell him that they were friends, and that he'd rescued him because he _didn't want him to die_. (Not that it mattered to Squalo, but it pissed him off, how he disregarded whatever it was that they'd been in school, and did it matter anyway?)

Information, that was what he wanted, and Squalo gave it up. It was hard to say no to Dino (always had been, he remembered that) and he didn't particularly want to anyway. Somewhere inside of him, he ached for the friendship they'd had- he broke down, they'd been _friends_- and how Squalo confided in Dino what he was too scared to confide in Xanxus, and how the brat was always better at anyone else than making him feel better.

He wanted that right now, and as Dino got up to leave, he grabbed him with his right hand, his other arm ending in a stump and lying dead on the hospital bed. It was painful, but Squalo hadn't ever really given a damn about pain.

And it didn't work out quite like he expected, but he managed to force out the dreaded apology, and for a second, he was sure that he saw that fourteen and naïve and caring Dino again.

Squalo didn't spill his guts, and he didn't admit that he _missed_ his friend, but he did ask if it was true that he'd only been saved because of what he knew.

Dino looked at him in surprise (again, Squalo was struck by how his friend had grown up) and maybe a bit of something like fondness, and he said _no, I saved you because we're friends_.

And Squalo proceeded to make a fuss and break several people's eardrums, but it was a much happier sort of fuss than the one he'd made before.

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><p><strong>Hm. How is it? 0.o Very raw... I'll probly edit... and I need a new title...<strong>

**I don't even know if Squalo and Dino were really this close. I just really like the idea of them being friends; and we've seen them together in some high school setting, so here we go. Ugh. This was hard to write...**

**Whatever.**

**Review! :D Review for the cuteness of Squalo's tsundere self!  
>...Something is REALLY wrong with me if I think that's cute...<strong>


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